\ nlllll Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/bookofloveOObarkrich THE BOOK OF LOVE THE BOOK OF LOVE BY ELSA BARKER Author of •* The Frozen Grail and Other Poems,** " The Son of Mary Bethel " NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY 191^ COPTBIGHT, 1912 Bt duffield and company CONTENTS When I am Dead and Sister to the Dust I. THE GARDEN OF ROSE AND RUE. A Quatrain Sequence 1. The Rose 1 2. The Rue 8 II. LYRICS AND SONNETS page The Bride of the Overman 21 I Know 22 The Messenger 22 Out of the Past 25 Mate 27 The Symbol ......... 27 A Maiden 28 A Year Ago , ... 29 Haunted , 29 Song of Krishna SO You 31 The Verge 32 Sometime 33 He Who Knows I.ove 34 Love's Paradox 34 In a Woman's Eyes 35 The Wisdom of the Rose . . * , , 36 A Hidden Chord . 37 The Parting Guest 37 V 3C€672 PAGE Petit Amour .. . S8 The Spectre 38 Sisterhood 39 The Beggar ......... 39 L'Academiste . . ,., 40 The Staff 40 At Midnight 41 Love's Fear 41 Requiescat in Pace 42 Love's Tragedy and Comedy .... 42 Without the Temple 43 When Love Cometh Not 43 Even as You and I 44 The Murderer 44 Rose of Shiraz 45 The Song of the Wandering Woman . . 45 Many Advisers 46 In the Dawnlight . . ; 46 Twin-Souls 48 The Bungler 50 Spring-Song of the Minstrel .... 50 The Love of Woman . . . . . . 51 The Slumberer 52 The Violin .52 By the Sea . 54 Good-Bye 55 In the Soul's House 56 The Coming of Love 57 Song of the Mortal Sun-Bride .... 58 Under the Stars . . . .... . . 60 The Man-Child ......... 61 Sapphics .......... 62 Outside 63 An Epistle 63 The Angel ......... 66 To the Unknown Love 68 vi PAGE The Lonely Quest . . . ., ,., ,., ,. 69 Salutation to the Lord of Love ..... 70 The Way . .. ... . ,., ., ,., .. ,.. 72 III. AZELON. Azelon ......... ,. . ,. 75 Far Away . . . . ,., ,. ., .< . 76 In May 77 Pervasion .... . ..i ,. . . . 77 Shadow-Love . . ,., . . . . . 78 Old Songs 79 Love-Glance 79 The Substance and the Shadow . . . 80 The Beckoner .81 The Gate 81 The Secret Jewels . . . .... 82 When We are Old 83 Sic Transit Gloria Mundi 83 Passion Seeds 84 The Stillborn 87 The Intervener 89 IV. THE HUMAN MIRROR. A Rhapsody . 93 V. THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE. A Sonnet Sequence. The Guerdon of Desire 117 The Mystic Hill 117 The Bridegroom 118 The Mystic Messenger 119 Out of the Maze 119 Recognition 120 The Spell 121 Alter Ego 121 The Horoscope 122 The Dream 123 The Avowal 123 vii PAGE Consummation 124 Love's Fearlessness 125 The Winds of Fate 125 The Moon Path 126 The Fog 127 The Gift of Pain 127 The Theft 128 The Questioner 129 The Answer 129 Love Madness 130 The Voyage 131 The Moment 131 Love's Hour of Silence 132 Plenitude 133 The Inscription 133 Consecrated 134 Duality 135 The Miracle 135 In Love's Eyes 136 The Thrush 137 A Vision 137 The Mystic Rose 138 Indirection 139 Aurora Borealis 139 The Body 140 Asleep 141 The Indwelling Mystery 141 At the Summit . 142 The Guest 143 The Watcher 143 In the Dawn Chamber 144 Why 145 The Gentle One 145 Caresses 146 Fulfilment 147 The Storm-Lord 147 viii PAGE The Cup 148 The Sanctuary 149 Love's Avatars 149 Creation 150 Love's Infinity . , 151 The Seal 151 Realisation 152 The Price of Love 153 Love's Mystic Jewel 153 Confession 154 The Past . 155 The Covenanters 155 Love-Sleep 156 The Menace 157 The Hand 157 Sisters 158 I Love You 159 The Candle . .159 Exorcism 160 Tears 161 The Ideal ......... 161 The Dual Vision 162 Genesis 163 The Triangle 163 Love- Wraith 164 The Silence of Love .165 Summer- Absence 165 The Clock 166 The Sea of Love . 167 Nature-Longing ........ 167 Love's Lyceum 168 Ephemera 169 The Oak 169 Under the Sky 170 The Virgin Shrine 171 The Child 171 ix PAGE Words .......... 172 The Veil 173 Truth 173 The Cruel Word . . . ,., . . . 174 Joy of Love 175 Isolation 175 Absorption ,. :. . 176 Opulence .,.,.,.. 177 As a Thousand Years . . . . . .177 Parted ..... . ,., . ,. . . 178 Autumn 179 Faith ...... . ,., . . .179 The Letter 180 Love's Wasted Days' . . . . . .181 Separate . . .181 Absence r.. . . . .182 Waiting 183 After Long Absence 183 The Abysm 184 Insatiate . . . 185 Beyondness . . ... . . . .185 Microprosopos ., . ., ,., „ ,., . .186 The Tower .....,,. .... . .187 Acme 187 The Sacrament of Love 188 When I Shall Lie in Death . . . .189 The Unspoken 189 Hidden Beauty . . . .... . .190 The Pervader .... .., ., . . 191 Recompense . . ., ., . ,., . . . 191 The Man 192 Illumination 193 The Song and the Singer . . ,. . .193 The Eagles 194 The Tabernacle . . . ., ,. . . .195 Love's Humbleness ... ., .. ,., ,., . 195 X PAGE Love's Baptism i. ,. .196 The Icy Path 197 A Question ,. . . 197 The Rhythmic Heart 198 The Presence . . 199 The Sphere of Love . . . . . .199 The Touch of Beauty 200 The Unassuagable 201 At Love's Feet 201 From the Void 202 Love-Light 203 The River 203 At the Supreme Hour 204 The Oasis , 205 The Thought of Thee 205 Love's Immortality 206 Beyond the Dragon's Gate 207 The Tides 207 Attainment 208 Tipherath 209 The Entity ,. . 209 The Inspirer 210 When You are Sad 211 The Lyric Seed .211 In the Stillness 212 The Revelation 213 A Dream of Death 213 The Abiding Peace 214 The Sower 215 Master 215 The Unrecorded 216 The Clue 217 The Supreme Gift 217 Love's Day and Night 218 The Hidden One 219 Spirit of Beauty 219 xi PAGE The Etablera 220 The Guardian of the Temple .1 . . .221 Woman-Love ........ 221 The Inner Light ........ 222 The Paradigm 223 Looking Upward 223 The Broken Prayer ....... 224 The Opener ......*,.... 225 The Sacrifice 225 The Valley of Dismay 226 The Great Dark 227 The Titan 227 The Well of Tears 228 Within Love's Veil 229 Withdrawn 229 The Empty Room 230 The Love-Singer 231 xu I THE GARDEN OF ROSE AND RUE A QUATRAIN SEQUENCE When I am dead and sister to the dust; When no more avidly I drink the wine Of human love; when the pale Proserpine Has covered me with poppies, and cold rust Has cut my lyre-strings, and the sun has thrust Me underground to nourish the world-vine. Men shall discover these old songs of mine. And say: This woman lived — as poets must! This woman lived and wore life as a sword To conquer wisdom; this dead woman read In the sealed Booh of Love and underscored The meanings. Then the sails of faith she spread. And faring out for regions unexplored. Went singing down the River of the Dead, THE GARDEN OF ROSE AND RUE I THE ROSE When I entreated Life to make me wise^ It drew aside Love's broidered veil of lies; And perilous Beauty, undivined before. Beckoned me from the mazes of his eyes. I do not care for gold, it is too cheap; Nor fame, whose field oblivion shall reap. But I would sing, and linger in the sun. And love — as only poets can — and sleep. The poorest lives some little blossoms bring To deck Love's altar in the days of spring. Save for the perfume of their vernal bloom. The pain of birth would seem too stern a thing. Only the poet looks Love in the eyes: He knows the meaning of the mystic sighs. The rapturous tears, the pain, the mad desire That starves upon the lips it satisfies. And after all our toils and dreams and prayers, 'Tis only Love for which the future cares; Labour and fame are steps along Love's way. And art is but the garment that he wears. 1 ; "iLove, let vts, steal away into the night — Into the luring wonder of the night. Impassioned earth breathes through the lonely grove The cool delirious fragrance of the night. Yea, thou didst make me captive with a glance — An arrow shot across the gulfs of chance; Its gleam appeared to my enchanted eyes The light of immemorial romance. Thy body is a living shrine for me. Thy deep embrace the bread and wine for me; Thy fervid kisses are the prayers of faith. Thine eyes the altar lights that shine for me. The moon sheds no such glamour anywhere As on the nimbus of thy mystic hair; Each separate thread is an aspiring ray — An emanation luminous with prayer. Time's hidden ways thine eyes reveal to me: Deep in their vision broods the memory Of all the myriad lives thy soul has known-, Thou passionate pilgrim of eternity! Thy voice is thrilling with an overtone That haunts the memory, like a whisper blown Upon the wind from somewhere in the dark: Maybe some ancient world our sires have known. There is a sweeter sound than seraph hears: The rhythm that moves the ever-pulsing years Holds less of lure and wonder to the soul — The music of thy heart-beats to my ears. Thy breath is like the breath of orient nights. Whose brooding glamour fragrantly invites The fainting fancy to a couch where wait The trembling dreams of wild, mysterious rites. I touch the breathing marvel of thy flesh, Like throbbing rose-leaves, and as dewy-fresh. How sprang this blossom from the common soil- World dust, that holds thy spirit in its mesh? The immortal Breath blows o*er us where we lie Beneath the star-leaved branches of the sky. Whispering a cosmic benedicite — O listen. Love, before the Word goes by! The lure of sxins is but the lure of Love, Their all-creative warmth — the warmth of Love ; And symbol of the passion of the cross — The shadowy rood upon the breast of Love. In these unquenchable desires we feel The thirsty future's dominant appeal; And through the fire of our impassioned dust A thousand ancestors their loves reveal. There is a dream that often comes to me In the grey dawn, and eyes me wistfully; 'Tis little as the child in Mary's arms And all as lovely — and it looks like thee ! Lest Love should grow too earthly to aspire, The wise gods blinded him with vague desire; They nourished him on dreams and ecstasies. Tempered his arrows in the sacred fire. They say thou art an idler, lover mine, Drunken with fancies, poetry and wine. What cares the nightingale for envious crows? Thy very faults are lovely — being thine. For me the cosmic aeons lie complete, O Love, between thy forehead and thy feet ! Here the untrammelled hours of day and night — Here dust and soul inalienably meet. My spirit is an emanated flame That burns the rose-leaves of its earthly frame, — Too vision-rapt to heed the rose's tears. Unmindful of her glory or her shame. Thy love is like deep waters all around — Warm pulsing waters, in whose brooding sound The lone wail of my heart is lulled with dreams. And the far clamour of the world is drowned. Why do the vine and oak together dwell? Why does the sun the listening stars compel? Why does the moon allure the sighing sea? I am so wise with love that I could tell. Lover mine, I pray thee, do not weep ! The very earth is damp with tears — grave-deep ; Without thy bitter tribute, the brave sun Can never dry them ere Time calls to sleep. The joy of Love is better than Love's tears, So kiss me and forget thy foolish fears. Soon, soon the clammy dark lips of the grave In one cold kiss will hold us years on years! How swift the merry sand runs in the glass! The midnight daughters glide along the grass. Veiling their faces in their purple hair. Draw nearer — this enchanted hour will pass. The stars have chosen thee to be my king. To tune my lyre of life and make me sing; The pressure of thy rose-leaf lips on mine Is more inspiring than the breath of Spring. 1 am the sun that warms thee with its heat, I am the dream that makes thy slumber sweet, I am the moon that watches thee all night, I am the sandals underneath thy feet. Draw close the mystic curtain of Love's bed: Here the dim Future and the Past are wed. And brooding Isis veils her mysteries — To whelm the world when thou and I are dead. In my life's soil thy life is planted deep. Never to be uprooted; and I keep The lyric seeds thy love has sown in me For a rare harvest all the world shall reap. Thou art the dream between Love's day and night. In thy strange being Love's extremes unite: The trance-like prayer that purifies the soul, The throbbing senses in their fierce delight. Thy dear white feet are moistened with my tears. Oh, what rose-shrouded thorns, what spectral fears Lurk for their toilsome passing in the dark Along the tragic pathway of the years! The lily petals of thy hand are light As vagrant dreams. I feel them in the night — Soft as the lotus of some lunar lake That drowses on the waves in vague delight. Love dreams and murmurs something in his sleep. With what strange secret do I vigil keep? Maybe some slumbering passion of dead days ! I veil my face in Love's long hair and weep. 6 Love wakes and leans above me in the dark. Half dazed with dreams that thrill the teeming dark; His warm soft lips feel blindly for my lips In the delirious wonder of the dark. Love ineffable! When fused we lie. Life piercing life, through flesh and breath and eye, I know not if this fiery luminous form — This river of lyric flame be thou or I ! The muses whisper to me from thy hair; Thy languorous look is perfume on the air. Thy breath a bridal veil that covers me. Thy touch a wild insatiable prayer. 1 lay my spirit in thine open hands; Between thy Angers the ecstatic sands Of my life tremble. This unearthly dream Only the poet ever understands! The birds are singing, and my lover sleeps. The rosy light of morning slowly creeps Over the moveless beauty of his face: Who knows this hour knows Love's sublimest deeps. So still is Love he hears the farthest sound; The footfall of the seasons in their round. The soft etheric swish of the rushing spheres. The murmur of the mute things underground. II THE RUE The night I learned that Love was false to me. Beside my bed the stars watched pitilessly, — Old midwives, muttering at each moan of pain: ** The birth-pangs of a soul are good to see ! " little hour of Love, so wild and sweet! 1 gave the world, thy honey-dew to eat; And now the tear-sown pathway of the dead Echoes the patter of thy flying feet. I can no longer bear thy burning eyes — They brand me, blind me; and thy smothered sighs Of passion are as poison to my soul, That drinks its fill of death with avid cries. Love, my Love, thou art so bitter-sweet! 1 would that from thy forehead to thy feet Thou vrert some deadly flower, that I might pluck And crush thy petals for my soul to eat. Sometimes I love thee so I wish thee dead. I would devour thy being as my bread; Would drain thy hidden veins dry, as of wine, Red drop by drop, for all my heart has bled! Oh ! I have bought in lonely, endless nights My fill of thee who art all strange delights — 8 The thrill of roses, and the viol's cry, The pang of the earth-passion's awful rites. And I am jealous of the very light That bares thy beauty from the veil of night: Deep in the dungeon of my sombre soul Thy body I would bury out of sight. Oh, kill me with thy kisses! Drain me dry Of pain and life, nor leave me breath to sigh; Yea, feed my spirit, starving at thy lips, Thy sweet perfidious poison ere I die! Bury me deep beyond all isolate pains In the dim shadows of thy thralling veins; That nevermore may there be sound of me. Or colour of me in all the earth contains. I then shall have no being save in thine: My love shall mingle with thy blood as wine Mingles with water, and thy wanton soul Shall never know a life apart from mine. Give me to drink the poison of thy breast — Dark cruel wine from grapes of passion pressed — Till I am drunk beyond delirium's dream In that dim utter deep where men may rest. There is a crevice in Love's garden wall Where mandrakes thrive, with lilies rank and tall; Where stealthy Death peers through a purple veil In madmen's eyes, and strange worms crawl and crawl, 9 I gave my lover tears and sacrifice. My soul's white prayer, my dreams of paradise. The vision of my guardian angel's face: He laughed and turned away his weary eyes. I gave my lover kisses bitter-sweet, Strange deadly blossoms for his soul's defeat, The purple paths of hell I lured him on: His lips burn fiercely on my tear-stained feet. The thorny rose of Love has one last sting Tipped with a poison strange and maddening. Who grasps it close shuns not the touch of Death: To love and loathe the self-same lovely thing. My lover whispers lies into my ear; My listening soul laughs silently to hear, — The still, ironic laughter of the tomb, Of merry skulls that grin from ear to ear. She wore a lily in her golden hair — That Azra — on the day Love found her fair. Oh ! I shall dread the lilies till I die. And tremble at their perfume on the air. I hang upon Love's shoulder worship-wise. Lost in the dreamy glamour of his eyes; With far-off meditative gaze he asks — If I have seen how blue are Azra's eyes! 10 I lie alone under the mocking sky. The midnight hours indifferently walk by. O wanton Moon ! You turn your back on me, To gaze and smile where Love and Azra lie! For we must laugh if we would hold our place In Nature's pitiless, capricious grace. He who desires to dally with the moon Must never come with tears upon his face. No desert waste is lonelier than I. The arid pain of Love has burned me dry. But passion's prayers turn backward on my lips — I will not be Love's beggar though I die! My false Love may seek pleasure where he will, While I my separate destiny fulfil — Grinding my soul against the adamant Of self, whose dust obscures my vision still. But of this Azra nothing shall remain More than of last year's lilies or its rain, Except her strange name echoing through my song Immortal with the laurels of my pain. My lover left me — and I shed no tears I Across the world I wonder if he hears The laughter of my soul at her own grief. Low pallid laughter — sadder than all tears! 11 We have a bitter power who laugh at pain, Who laugh and laugh — for tears are shed in vain. They weary lovers and amuse the gods: tender thought to soothe the reeling brain! 1 felt thine essence quivering like wine Through all my veins, that leaped to answer thine — Our spirits fusing in a flash of flame — The day I bought thy soul and blood with mine. When thou art false, my Love, I know full well There is no truth — this side the gate of hell, No little lily soul unstained by lies. No sphere of beauty not an empty shell. Is there no anodyne despair may buy. No draught of dreamless sleep for such as I? Discordant singer in the choir of Love, Who neither cares to live nor dares to die. How many minutes are there in a day? Love's restless watchers know, and only they: The clock ticks, and the quivering nerves are strained For sound of steps — that never come their way. If women really die and bum in hell. They do not burn vdth fire — the prophet's hell. No! But they wait, and wait, and wait, and wait^ For one who never comes — the woman's hell. 12 Thy vacant room is an enchanted place; Thy wraith pervades the air that I embrace; The perfume of thy presence lingers still About the pillow where I lay my face. I touch thy garments lightly, half afraid, So ghostly are they in the teeming shade. The candle flickers, like a frightened soul, Before the little altar where we prayed. The stars are not so lonely as my heart! Though I should scale the cruel cliffs of Art And cut my name into their granite face — Love's way and mine would lie as far apart. The pain of Love has poisoned all the day. Pitiless Love, that lures but to betray! And pitiless the whisper of the soul: Like songs and worlds, this too shall pass away. Life plays us mortals many a strange jest: Dead leaves and grave-dew crown our aching quest, And when Love comes to cheer us by the way — Always the one wq love not, loves us best. Only the Lord of Change has endless sway. The vanished Love of our dead yesterday Now wanders wailing down the woods of dream. And mocking shadows beckon where we lay. 13 The world's poor travesty of Love stalks by, Linked arm ip arm with Death — a smiling lie ! Its empty words and empty laughter bring The tears of pity to the lover's eye. Deep Love is slow of speech and void of art; Silence and timid tears reveal his heart. But shallow Love is ever eloquent To mouth his meagre passion — and depart. Ye who would know how sweet a thing is Love, Go ask the souls outside the pale of Love — The pallid priest, the love-mocked Magdalen — They also know how bitter a thing is Love, O silent watcher of the mystic fire! When to your hidden temple I retire To still my soul, between your eyes and mine Falls like a veil the shadow of Desire. And oh, the pity of that piercing, vain Delight, that fills again and yet again The hollow world with little yearning souls — Swelling the awful sum of mortal pain! Pale passion and red hatred strove with me. And dark pride strove, pain, and gaunt jealousy; Strove till they all lay dead one stormy day. My soul, surprised, awoke to find her free! 14 But I am weary and I long to sleep. The hungry flame of Love has burned so deep Into the tender substance of my life, I care no more either to laugh or weep. How heavy is the earth's heart as it hears Ever the dropping, dropping of Love's tears! Must not those bitter, murmuring waters drown The choral harmonies of kindred spheres.-^ The cool white flower of peace must bloom for me Somewhere between the mountain and the sea: The sea in whose wide bed I may not rest. The mountain whose austerities I flee. Oh, for the pure oblivion of sleep! In those vast waters I would sink me deep Beyond where both desire and dream lie dead. And passion and despair forget to weep. Death hides no hell that could awake my fear. For I have heard the sound that madmen hear. Heard the far wail of a crushed, tortured thing — My own strayed soul, and seen it disappear! Who dares to love unloved the cord unties In whose close coils the fettered spirit lies; The jealous gods blush and evade his glance. And joy and pain are equally his prize. 15 He loves me not, and all the world is grey. But I am wiser now than yesterday! If he had laid life's roses in my lap — I never should have known the world was grey. The sun has dried the tear-drops in my eyes. The sturdy wind has blown away my sighs. While the sun laughs, I am ashamed to weep; And the wind is old and knows all sorrow dies. Now will I sing my song, that not in vain Shall be my passage through the fiery rain, — A song of light, for the world's heart would break If I should sing the story of my pain. The distillation from Love's bleeding heart Is the rose-attar of the lyric mart; And Pain and Passion are the sentinels That double-guard the jealous doors of Art. Poor lover, writhing in the lonely night, Thy vale of hell leads to a solemn height: Who dares the fire, and gains the farther side, Walks with the sons of God in the great light. Ye who would know Love's highest reach of bliss — The still, white peaks of peace — remember this : Before a soul can face that steady light It must have plumbed pain's nethermost abyss. 16 I sought my soul in joy — she was not there. Vainly I sought her too in toil and prayer. At last I found her with illumined eyes Walking the rainbow of my Love's despair. 17 II LYRICS AND SONNETS THE BRIDE OF THE OVERMAN Oh, do not remember these womanly tears That I shed on your wondering face! They are drops from the wells of unspeakable fears That lurk in the cavernous dusk of, dead years Awaiting a time and a place, — Fears of old memories clamouring still For a glance of my soul or a sign; And they mock at the feeble and passionate will That would render immortal the touch and the thrill Of a man's clinging lips upon mine. Swearing fidelity far beyond death. The presumptuous children of clay Would make love's ideal a loud shibboleth, When everything under the law of the Breath May claim but the hour and the day. O lover as wise as the magi of old ! You have given me rapture more vast Than God's dream of creation; and yet we are told That the mightiest passion must some day lie cold In the bottomless gulf of the past. And our love — nay Beloved, regard not the tears. Or kiss them away if you will — Our love shall be wide as the sweep of the spheres. And free as the music the Overman hears In his cave on the crown of the hill. 21 But sometimes, I know, at the terror night brings In this land without pathway or mark, I shall cling to your hand as a little child clings, Lest your candle go out in the wind from God's wings. And leave me alone with the shadowless things In the emptiness under the dark. I KNOW Oh! I know why the alder trees Lean over the reflecting stream; And I know what the wandering bees Heard in the woods of dream. I know how the uneasy tide Answers the signal of the moon. And why the morning-glories hide Their eyes in the forenoon. And I know all the wild delight That quivers in the sea-bird's wings. For in one little hour last night Love told me all these things. THE MESSENGER O PALE pressed flower That has crossed the world-wide sea From my Orient-wandering Love With words for me! 22 Frail messenger Of a dream that does not die, Though all the threads of life Be drawn awry! Your Asian stem Drew from that storied earth The essences that gave The pale Christ birth. Beauty and faith, And a something all unknown. On your sweet and subtle breath To me are blown. Give you, he says. Soft kisses and send you back To his tent where the world's way joins The pilgrim's track. O flower! tell him These messages for me: Tell him there lies the old haze Over the sea. Tell him the path To the little house and lawn Is overgrown with grass Now he is gone. Tell him the vine On the arbour is bare of leaves; Now it has nothing to hide It pines and grieves. Tell him the star That recorded our bridal vow In the book of the summer dark Is shining now. Tell him the crows In the pine-tree still arise To challenge the wraith of dawn With warning cries. Tell him the glass That used to mirror the sea And our twined forms now mirrors Only the sea. Give him these tears. And tell him the golden heart Of the rose of life grows grey When lovers part. 24 OUT OF THE PAST Somewhere, Love, in the far-off, time-veiled days of the great past, Thou and I and the beautiful Love-god danced in the sunshine. Somewhere, too, as the night dew lay on the leaves of the jungle. Thou didst whisper me softly the unknown mystical Word. Under thy languorous eyelids, dark as the doors of the future. Strange dreams, wild dreams, beckon my rapt soul. Oh, to allay my Fever and longing there in the midnight pools of the lotus. Losing myself and the world in the brooding embrace of thine eyes! Thy dark hair is a veil of the Mystery. Under the shadows — Purple with Orient heat, deep sultriness — something is hidden, Something my lone soul needs. Though it yield to the touch of my fingers. Still it eludes my sight while maddening me to the quest. 25 Thy touch, Love, is the sun's touch, pure as the breath of the morning; Thy touch, Love, is the bite of the fire — unassuagable passion ; Under thy hand or thy hot lips — aye, in the cling of thy garments — Ecstasy waits, pain hides, power quivers to move me to Hfe. Through thine eyes I am one with the deathless One of the ages. Thy strong hold is the life-hold, firm with the urge of creation. Under thy spell Time listens and stirs not; there the immortal Silence pauses to drink of the rushing river of joy. Where did I lose thee? Where in the garden of devi- ous byways, Love, did we loosen our hands? Oh, hold me close and forever ! So the celestial Gardener may not distinguish between us. So we appear to His eyes one rose on the tree of the world. 26 MATE There is a wistful prayer That often comes to me, And lays its face against my face In utter ecstasy — That all the lovers in the world Might be as near as we! THE SYMBOL Thy love is a symbol, a mystical sign Of vast, unuttered things; The bread and the sacramental wine Of my faith I receive at Love's veiled shrine In all thy ministerings. Thy love is my dream in the mortal night, A web by the earth-moth spun, A veil for the unendurable Light; It softens the blaze for my frail sight Of the immanent unseen Sun. Thy love is realisation's hour. High noon on the disc of life; The sands of its time are the sands of power In the glass of Fate, round whose watch-tower The cosmic winds are at strife. 27 Thy love is the promise of keener bliss Than earth-dazed beings feel; The rush of its blood is the flaming kiss Of stars on the edge of the great abyss Where form and spirit reel. Thy love is a danger beyond all fear, A rift in the fathomless void; From its perilous deep strange faces peer. And pale hands beckon to some far sphere Where self shall be destroyed. Thy love is the peace of eternity, The rest that follows birth; The fold of thine arms is the fold of the sea. And they hold and soothe and cradle me As the ocean holds the earth. A MAIDEN "Give me Love, O Life," I cried, " Give me Love, though naught beside ! I would know the way he wanders. For the world is wide." Then I found him at my side. For my prayer was not denied; And the narrow world has nowhere For my heart to hide! 28 'A YEAR AGO How strange it seems that one brief year ago Indifferently I watched you passing by, Nor dreamed that in your half-averted eye Love's universe was mirrored! Even so Bloom lilies by the stream whose overflow Shall sweep them from their moorings, and untie Their roots from the home soil. A bee may fly To windward of a rose-bush and not know. With all his hidden wisdom. Love is blind! You were the messenger of Destiny That paused before my dwelling undivined. A year ago your spirit was for me The pearl a diver risks his life to find — And passes in the darkness of the sea. HAUNTED What is that sound on the wind, my Love, That little wail of fright? Is it the cry of a lone lost dove Somewhere up in the boughs above Our window this wild night.'' What is that shadow along the wall That wavers and is still? It is very faint and very small To fill my soul with this weird appal. This weight of unknown ill. 29 O Love, there are fingers upon my hair, And yours are fast in mine! Is it a breath of the midnight air That blows on my forehead and lingers there? Or is it a ghostly sign? Gather me close in your strong arms. Dear, And hold me tenderly; For I dare not whisper the thing I fear. Unless I feel you near — Oh, near — To the throbbing heart of me! It is not a shadow that wavers there. Nor a dove that moans in pain. Nor a breath of the night wind on my hair: 'Tis the pilgrim Soul from the realm of air That knocked at our door in vain! SONG OF KRISHNA I AM all things, and I lie in thine arms ! Thou dost embrace in me Time and the measure of Time, The thrill of all joy, and the rush of the stars through the outermost virginal void. I am Love that binds, and I am the great Unbinder. Life has no gifts that my hands do not scatter. And darkness is the shadow of mine eyelids. 80 Beauty burns in her veil for the vision of those I em- brace. When I whisper to my Love in the stillness. Somewhere on earth a musician hears divine harmony. Somewhere a flower opens. I will not leave thee, for without me there is nothing; When thou feelest the touch of thy friend in the night- time, know I am there; When in the rush of the great waters terror comes nigh thee, know I am there. All lovers are only the promise of me. And what are all lovers beside me? YOU Through you the beauty of the world lies bare. I feel the breeze like God's breath on my face Whispering an unknown word — and everywhere I see the vision of a love-lit face. So strange it seems! A little while ago I knew not any of these lovely things; To all my dreams the demons answered no, Darkening the daylight with their evil wings. Tell me, Beloved, for your words are wise. How do you hold all beauty in your hand. And all the host of heaven in your eyes. And in your hours the moons of fairyland? 31 You pass my threshold, and the narrow room Is peopled with the tenuous forms of air, The barren boughs of faith are all abloom, And I am mute with wonder and with prayer. THE VERGE Oh, tell me, traveller, I pray, Where my slain love lies dead! My soul has wandered up and down. By grief and terror led. But found no token save the drops Her own bruised feet have bled. Along the cypress-shaded way Strange shadows come and go; The ghosts of all love's buried hours Walk with me, pale and slow; But I would rather go alone. Because they beckon so. Further I fare along the road; But there is nothing here Save empty spaces, and the glooms Where grope weird shapes of fear — The grim, mad phantoms of the mind That stare and mock and leer. 32 Somewhere there is an awful place Where all dead things lie cold; Prayers, passions and forgotten tears. Kisses, and lies long told. Shame, soft caresses, sleep and faith, — They all lie there and mould. There love may lie. But my tired feet Will never find the way. They falter. The Lethean waves Lap round them cold and grey. In those dead waters let me rest Until the Judgment Day! SOMETIME Sometime the Spring will come with softer green Than ever dared to touch the world before; Sometime the Guest my soul has never seen Will pass the threshold of my waiting door. Sometime the passion of my book of song Will face me in the eyes of Destiny; Sometime the Question I have asked so long Of the slow stars, will turn and answer me. A sail, now tossing on the sea of dreams. Sometime will rest in the broad port of waking; Sometime the Weaver, that now idle seems. Will show some splendid fabric of her making. S3 There lies a light upon the peaks of faith That makes my heart beat faster as I climb; And wistfully before me floats a wraith — The Presence that will walk with me sometime. HE WHO KNOWS LOVE He who knows Love — becomes Love, and his eyes Behold Love in the heart of everyone. Even the loveless: as the light of the sun Is one with all it touches. He is wise With undivided wisdom, for he lies In Wisdom's arms. His wanderings are done, For he has found the Source whence all things run The guerdon of the quest, that satisfies. He who knows Love becomes Love, and he knows All beings are himself, twin-born of Love. Melted in Love's own fire, his spirit flows Into all earthly forms, below, above; He is the breath and glamour of the rose. He is the benediction of the dove. LOVE'S PARADOX The tears of hopeless love are bitter-sweet; Its cruel rocks that tear the lover's feet To him are dearer than the flower-strewn ways — The careless ways where youth and pleasure meet. 64 IN A WOMAN'S EYES Last night I walked with Love along the world. The crowded world, so strange to Love and me. The freighted sphere, that through the starry sea To some uncharted port is blindly whirled. I walked with Love, our faces luminous With that unearthly light which lovers throw Around their presence. Passing to and fro. The hurrying people paused to look at us. But in one woman's eyes there blazed red hate For me, — a little woman like a dove, Drooping and timid, who once walked with Love Up to the very entrance of Life's gate; But feared to lift its latch of destiny. And feared to tread upon the sacred ground Of that sweet grove where Love and I have found The budding rose-tree of Infinity. Her blue eyes burned down to my startled soul. Then Love and I passed on into the wide Compassionate solitude where we abide. Where Peace has conquered Pain, and crowns his goal. But through Love's eyes those sad eyes gazed in mine Till dawn, not blazing now but dim with weeping; And Love and I — a mystic vigil keeping — Watched with her spirit in its tear-lit shrine. 35 O little sister! at your door to-day There waits a love you would not understand; As if you were my child in some dead land To whose long memories I have lost my way. Or is it all a dream? And from Love's heart — Being so blended with him — do I gain This comprehension of an alien pain, A shadow in whose form I have no part? THE WISDOM OF THE ROSE Do not wound me or I die, O my Rose ! " I heard him cry ; ** Cover all thy thorns with soft leaves, Lest thy lover sigh." But I pressed my sharpest thorn Deep into his heart that morn; Though the pain I felt him suffer Left me, too, all torn. And he died, as he had said, Desolate, uncomforted. And the kind old earth, our Mother, Drank the drops he bled. 86 A HIDDEN CHORD A GIRL gazed long at Love in going by ; I saw the great light shining in her eye — The look Love's eyes have when they gaze at me. The quick tears wet my cheek — I wonder why ! THE PARTING GUEST The bright-winged Eros came one summer day With roses for us^ and a smiling claim That we should join him in his magic game Of making golden images of clay; Until I grew aweary of his play. Weary and burdened with a secret shame For every word we uttered in his name: Now I am glad that he is flown away. Let us go up, dear, to the wind-blown hill; The air is pure there, and the strong pine-trees Laugh in the light. . . . Seems the sheer height too chill? Nay, draw thy mantle close. In hours like these The valley-dweller hears, when all is still. The far-off roar of the eternal seas. 87 PETIT AMOUR There was a little love all lily-pale. Too fair and white to breast life's bitter gale. It died, as little loves are wont to die, — A gnat's death weighed as much in the Great Scale! THE SPECTRE Out of the deep where dim-remembered years And buried loves await Time's sure intent, Rises the spectre of that far event Which taught the master-mystery of tears To my expectant heart. How strange appears That face, which my imagination lent The beauty of God, till — rapt and confident — My soul forgot her heritage of fears! Since last I looked in those illusive eyes. My spirit in the lake of lustral flame Has been washed white of everything that dies In pain. And though this end was not an aim He laboured toward, my freed life testifies Its debt to him for power, and love, and fame. 38 SISTERHOOD Sister, the world would deem me a strange thing To love the former love of my heart's king; But jealous self bows to the mystic bond — We two have drunk deep of one sacred spring! THE BEGGAR In the dim years before I met with you I dreamed how Love one day would come to me, A plumed knight, who on his bended knee His sovereign lady would acclaim and woo; And I should hold his homage as my due. With smiling pride elude him, nor agree Too readily to listen to his plea. Though, as I dreamed, his every word was true. Then came the night I looked into your eyes . . O love that burns and memory that sears ! I am no longer proud, though strangely wise In the dark lore of ecstasy and tears, — A starving beggar at your knees, who cries For bread to dull the yearning of the years. UACABEMISTE A LEARNED fool discovered Love one day, And sought to demonstrate his tyrant sway In dull iambics. While the muses yawned. Love laughed — and shook his wings — and flew away ! THE STAFF *TwAs long ago, with fasting and with prayer, I cut my pilgrim staff from the great tree Of sacrifice, and it has been with me In all my wandering. Rugged and bare. And dry as ancient stone, up the steep stair — The winding granite stair of destiny — The staff has gone beside me steadily. Aye, urged me on under the load of care. But yesterday the beauty of the Spring Trembled through all my being, and I leaned Upon my staff — to feel it quivering; To see that its whole rigid length had greened, Had grown all tender with soft buds, that screened The eyes of Love. . . . And then I heard him sing! 40 AT MIDNIGHT There is a nagging nettle in my bed, And wayward Sleep goes by with careless tread: To-night I saw a shadow on Love's face, To haunt me for those idle words I said. LOVE'S FEAR I AM afraid, because I love thee so! — Afraid lest the inexorable years Instruct thee in the pitiless lore of tears — Intimate lore I mastered long ago. My courage falters for thee; but I know Those secret drops the eyelids of all seers Are bitter with, before the way appears Where the wise lilies of compassion grow. Dear, I shall see thee stricken with despair. And have no anodyne to ease thy pain. Nor promise of an answer to thy prayer. For we invoke the Lord of Life in vain Who plead against experience, or dare To turn aside God's arrow — though Love be slain! 41 REQUIESCAT IN PACE When Love is dead — why stain his lips with lies ! Love knows no rest, no honour as he dies ; But goaded to feign joy and life, he wears The world's arraignment in his weary eyes. LOVE'S TRAGEDY AND COMEDY Once on a time in my untutored past, I raised an altar to Love's Tragedy And covered it with rue and rosemary; Then with sad rapture at its base I cast My soul in dedication. But at last Great Love himself came by and beckoned me With slow indulgent smile, so bold and free That Tragedy drew down her veil — aghast. Behind Love came a being robed in flowers — Love's Comedy, with summer in her glance; The laughing sister whose transforming powers Can turn life's laggard march into a dance. With Love and her so gaily go the hours, I bless them both for my deliverance. I* WITHOUT THE TEMPLE Nay, dear, I do not love you any more! Put out the altar fire and close the door. Love's holy temple that we built for him I must profane not — now I love no more. WHEN LOVE COMETH NOT The hours are ages when Love cometh not. The very sunshine stays reservedly Outside the window, and the vigilant sea Booms with a lagging rhythm. Storm shadows blot The scroll of heaven; while the uncertain spot Of substance where my soul waits, seems to be A desert island in eternity. Washed by the tides of time, by God forgot. This cruel hour will pass, and I shall hear. Quivering, Love's eager hands upon the door . . Yet there might come a cold, inclement year When Love would not avail me as before. When I should be less lovely and less dear — A wind-blown barque upon a barren shore! '4$ EVEN AS YOU AND I O BROTHER mine, I hear strange dole of you From her who flatters — and takes toll of you ! She must lay off the blinding veil of Self To see the strong, true, comrade soul of you. THE MURDERER To them that murder Love, of no avail Shall be the penance of a thousand years. At every midnight to my soul appears Upon the sea of sleep a spectral sail. I see the moonlight wavering and pale On the remembered face of him that steers. Deep graven with the ghosts of many tears — The weariness of them that love and fail. And when in the dawn-twilight cold and grey I wake, despair and emptiness are mine. Though I implore, the vision will not stay; But on the purple dim horizon line There lies a deeper shadow, for a sign That in the night a soul has passed that way. m ROSE OF SHIRAZ My lover is a Mussulman^ 'tis said^ Whose loves are strung like jewels on a thread. I'd rather be the clasp that holds the string Than shine alone on any other head. THE SONG OF THE WANDERING WOMAN Thou hast broken my soul on the wheel. Thou hast drunk of my sorrow as wine, Thou hast branded my brow with thy seal. And my faith thou hast hung for a sign. Thou hast spilled all my dreams on the ground And broken the strings of my lyre, And the chords of my being are bound By memories that mock at desire. Thou has taught me the knowledge of years In a day, of despair I am wise ; Thou hast moistened thy bread with my tears, And groped in the gloom of my sighs. O Beloved, whose breath is my pain! Thy shadow has darkened the world; For thy spirit is thunder and rain, And thy love is a meteor hurled. 45 But thy darkness is dearer than light. So I die, and my cry to be free Is a song of redemption to God in the night For the sins of the Tforld and of me. MANY ADVISERS O Love, I care not whether they were right — The cold advisers, or the words they said. When in the teeming silence of the night I hear your heart throb underneath my head ! IN THE DAWNLIGHT Beloved, whose garment is life. Whose eyes are the twin wonders of light and the vision of light: Give me a glimpse behind the cosmical veil that covers Thy beauty. Make palpable to me a touch of Thine inscrutable ten- derness. I would know the self-sufficiency of Thy love. For I am weary of all Love's demands and apologies. I would be solitary as the quiet stars. Though intimate with the world as a nursing child with its mother. I would dream to-day on the orient lake with the lotus^ 46 I would strive to-morrow with the northern pine in the tempest. In the morning I would wander alone looking for the lost Pleiad in the vast meadows of Taurus, I would swarm in the afternoon with the myriad bees in the clover meadows of Earth. I would mumble prayers with the pilgrims on the road to Mecca, I would laugh with the children of joy in the groves of Bacchus. Deep in the hearts of all the earth-kindred are secrets I hunger to learn. When I hear the call of the wild bird in the spring- time, There stirs in me the vague responsive mate-longing of the woods. The moody look in the eyes of the caged panther fills me with fear; But there is a thought in his brain that I need for a marvellous poem. And I shall never be wise till I understand its mean* ing. I have seen in the eyes of a dog I have slighted a look that shamed me. The dignity of the love that waits and questions not — transcending my own for my lover! I would be friends with the earthworm, and even the robin distrusts me; There is something known to the squirrels that books have never taught me, 47 But when I question them they always run away. And the silence that broods in the sacred aisles of the congregated pine-trees — Is gone with the sound of my footsteps! But somewhere the transcendent Wonder awaits me — The vision of primordial and ultimate Love that is hidden in the dark of the ages before and after : It but awaits the destined hour to make me one with all things. Will the revelation come to me in the eyes of my lover? Will it come in the symbols of a dream, haloed around with the light of its own interpretation? Is it something divine that shall penetrate and possess me? Or only the boundless expansion of all that is I? TWIN-SOULS T AM thy fellow-spirit Who journeyed at thy side Before the Sphinx was builded. Before Osiris died. I am thy soul's companion Who lost thee in the wave That rose when old Atlantis Went down to her sea-grave. 48 One greater than great Isis Joined, with a rite sublime, Thy soul and mine together In the far dawn of time. When to thine eyes at midnight The tears unbidden start. And vague bewildered longings Ache in thy lonely heart, Know that my soul is calling Somewhere, and making moan Unto the laggard Future To give it back its own. When in the ghostly twilight A shadow on the wall Sets all thy nerves aquiver — *Tis I, who mutely call; And when the passionate springtime Renews its ancient quest, I am the vagrant wonder That trembles in thy breast. 49 THE BUNGLER I MADE a man out of my own great need. I took the body of one ready-formed In Nature's workshop, but its blood I warmed With my own fire. Half of my soul I freed To animate the form; the dream, the deed That makes man godlike, these from the great void I conjured, and my temple veil destroyed That he might see the image burn and bleed. But when I questioned this created thing. There was no voice to answer; for the breath Divine I had not given — could not give! Confounded before God, I only bring Into creation's hall this masque of death. Which wears the mould of life but does not live. SPRING-SONG OF THE MINSTREL You who are to be my comrade Down the wide road of the world. Spring is come, with greening banners On the loving wind unfurled. Though the way ahead is rugged. Like all ways that we have trod, We will rest us every evening In the leafy tents of God. 50 We will leave behind life's luggage, We shall only need a lyre; We will robe ourselves in sunbeams, Warm us at the lyric fire. Earth's possessions are so heavy. They would hinder us, I fear; For our feet must walk the rainbow As it swerves from sphere to sphere. Hark! The dewy dawn is calling Us to take the sunward way. Forward, singing wild, free music. Let us tramp the trail of day. THE LOVE OF WOMAN Dear, I will stand beside thee to the end. Thy loving mate, thy comforter, thy friend. If peace and plenitude shall bless thy ways, I will enjoy them with thee all my days. If shame and sin should be thy bitter lot. My faith will cover thee and question not. If thou art false to me, then I will say Thy spirit fell asleep that cruel day; But thou wilt wake, and need my loving care. So I will watch with fasting and with prayer. 51 THE SLUMBERER THOU mysterious One lying asleep Within the lonely chamber of my soul! Thou art my life's true goal, Thine is the only altar that I keep. Rapt in the contemplation of thy repose, 1 see in thy still face that Mystic Rose Whose perfume is my soul's imaginings. And Beauty at whose awesomeness I weep With over-plenitude of ecstasy. Thy slumber is the great world-mystery — The paradigm of all the latent things That in their destined hour Time magnifies; Its emblems are the intimate hush that lies Over the moonlit lake; The wonder and the ache Of unborn love that trembles in its sleep; The hope that thrills the heavy earth With presage of becoming, and vast birth; The secret of the caverns of the deep. THE VIOLIN I HOLD between my quivering hands A violin new-strung. Wrought of a master builder's love To be the passionate tongue Of the unseen, to utter sounds Never on earth yet sung. 52 Mute though it lies and musicless. My breath across the strings, Warm with the love that bares to me The mystic soul of things, Wakens the slumbering tones and stirs Melodious murmurings. Dreamy it is with memories Of that reborn desire That in this fibre buried deep The builder's heart of fire. O Violin! the magic bow Is all the gods require, Out of the silence of your soul To smite the rhythmic flame Of pain and rapture, and achieve The indomitable aim. Sounding through all infinity The demiurgic Name. O Violin, my violin! 'Tis fateful to command The silences to utter sound. The wise gods understand When I would lift the magic bow Why trembles so my hand. 58 BY THE SEA Oh, turn your dreamy eyes now to the sea! Turn them a moment, dear, away from me To where the world, to our self-bounded sight. Begins to be. We two can see but such a little way! Although the sun is bright for us to-day. What lies beyond this hour's horizon rim We cannot say. Perhaps that purple speck against the blue May be the mast-head of some ship long due From destiny's dim port, with priceless pearls For me and you. Will we not melt the purest in our wine And drink the draught together, for a sign Unto the gods of being that their best Is yours and mine? Or, if the cargo prove but common dust. We will accept it, for the stars are just; And we will make a road of it, and laugh — As brave ones must. Dear heart, I have no easy words to say The many things that I have felt to-day Here by the sea, with destiny and you And life at play. 54 The sand around us, where to you and me The world's self-conscious centre seems to be. Is like that far unknown horizon rim To those at sea. And so this hour that sings itself away Was on our life's horizon yesterday, Although unknown to us as yonder ship. As seeming grey. Oh, turn your eyes from the horizon, dear! My hands are trembling as the ship draws near. Hold them and tell me — Love ! — whether it be With hope or fear. GOOD-BYE Dear, we have made Love's fleeting days Bewilderingly sweet, But now the world's long, lonely ways Yearn for your lingering feet. Why do you tarry at the door And gaze at me with tears .f* Is it because time holds no more Years like our vanished years? Your royal gift of self I hold. Shrined in my heart and brain; The master-secret you have told Me, I shall tell again. 55 And on that unregarded road That you will travel soon^ The beauty that my love bestowed Shall be some pilgrim's boon. Justified now by the true past And trusting truth to be, I yield you to the future's vast Inscrutable decree. IN THE SOUL'S HOUSE O BRIGHT-WINGED Lovc, whosc ways are mystery, Whose hours no man may reckon! I have swept And burnished my soul's house, where long I kept The body of one dead and hopelessly Gazed at the flickering candles ranged by thee Around his head and feet. But I who wept, Now weep no longer; I who sadly slept Under the pall, have burned it and stand free. And I have climbed the stairs of the high tower That looks upon the sunrise. Robed in white. My spirit, ever virgin, waits the hour When thou. Love, the dawn-wonder, veiled in light, Shalt touch the world and me with quickening power. And drive all dead things down the nether night. 56 THE COMING OF LOVE I HAVE sought Love all my days; Down the world's long dusty ways I have listened ifor his footsteps, I have sung his praise. I have offered in his name Peace and solitude and fame On my spirit's hidden altar — But he never came. Sometimes in the tenuous night I have felt the still delight Of a presence; but it vanished With the morning light. Till I wearied of the quests Of the yearning in my breast; And I whispered to my lone heart, " Let us be at rest: ** Love's unsullied mystery Is not meant for thee and me; We are too deep-stained with living — It could never be ! '* Then before I was aware Came a breath across my hair. While a stillness strange and reverent Held the waiting air; 57 And my spirit^ strong and sweet. Rose the long-sought guest to greet, . Rose — then bent to kiss the garment Round his shining feet. SONG OF THE MORTAL SUN-BRIDE Thou Supreme One, Lord of my Lord, Thou who art throned in the centre of each and every thing. The lights of whose chamber are souls that keep vigil. Be merciful unto me in this night of my wakefulness And leave me not alone with my own moon-shadow. Leave me not alone, or the Dark will lay its hands upon me! I would be chaste of the touch of the hands of Dark- ness — I whom the Lord of Light held as a spouse this day in the high noon. While Earth lent me the veil of her own bridal. And Ocean murmured the benediction of the waters. On this night of wonder I would not be alone, O Su- preme One! For my Lord is away carrying Thy message through the regions of the Underworld, And when he returns he will bring the morning. The Dark and the fear of the Dark will flee before him, 58 And hide in the cavern of the mountains. I shall need no more to cover my head with the veil of the illusion of indifference. For the eyes of my Lord have looked into mine in the daytime, And have found no shame therein. Thou who art throned in the centre of each and every thing. Hide me in the closure of Thy hand until the morning. For the eyes of fear are upon me. Rememberest Thou the look of my Lord in the hour of his beauty. When the power of the gods was with him? Uncovered he was by even a veil of vapour! I saw in the face of the western sky the desire of him, The Void opened her arms to him. Now in the houses of Thine Underworld are many dangers. And the Dragons of the Zodiac are full of malice. Oh, restore to me my Lord, my Beloved! The belt of Orion would be laid aside at Thy bidding; Alcyone is a lily in Thy garden; The Milky Way is a veil that hides Thy beauty. And I? I am bound to the unlit side of one of Thy smaller planets, I am weak as a blade of grass, my days are drops of rain. 59 The night is far spent. Trembling I turn toward the dark closed tent of the East, The tent whose floor opens into the future. Straining my eyes for the first pale streak of dawn under the curtains, I wait. . . . Will it come like the thin white blade of a sword to slay me? Will it come like the petal of a blush rose, tremulous, pink with unspeakable promise? UNDER THE STARS Love, you have made me dizzy with your eyes! They are as deep and star-sown as the skies; They reach above me in their bourneless blue — O high, vast, swimming firmament of You! Trembling, I clutch your hand, so sure and strong: As one who gazes on the stars too long — Till he is dizzy with their awful height And the earth's motion through the trackless night Clings to the solid ground, and hides his face, Lest he be flung into the sea of space. 60 THE MAN-CHILD O WONDERFUL small being that my Love Made of his dreams before he dreamed of me! Trembling I bend above Your terrifying softness, for I see Something in you that made the stars afraid Before their moons were made. Strong is my soul to dare resistant things; But with the pressure of your powerless hand My will is like a bird with broken wings. And all my words are written in the sand. And she who bore you is the sacred vase That held the wine of Love's high sacrament. The still Madonna to whose bower was sent The angel of God's grace. No other worshipper will come like me, man-child! with such offerings for your sake; For I know all the secrets of the sea. And of men's souls that ache; 1 know the mystery in women's eyes. The mute word never said. The laws that are the wonder of the wise, And why they smile so strangely who are dead. 61 SAPPHICS Aphrodite, lady of Love, O hear me! I have sung thy praises the heavy day long; Now at nightfall, sorrowing still, my heart bows Humbly before thee. Pity thou me, lonely without the garden Where the rose blooms; mad for the beauty somewhere Hiidden from me, under the veil of twilight Wonder and shadow. Let me drink deep, deep of the dew that lies cool On the young flower! Give me, O Aphrodite! Dew for Love's thirst, nectar of night to ease this Fever that burns me. Give me Love's dark rose of divine caresses — Rose of deep curled petals the day has known not. Passion's own flower, woven of dream and perfume. Ardour and anguish. Thine are strange ways, pitiless Aphrodite! Lone, denied love, weeping I go with mute lips Where the night-blind, merciful waters will not Know nor deny me. 62 OUTSIDE Take me again to the house of thy heart. Beloved! Here in the outer world there is rain and thunder, Dragons of unbelief and the formless terror. Over the earth-face clings the night like a wet veil; Down from the mountain comes the wail of the wild things, Up from the ocean the scream of the wind-blown sea- mew, I am alone with the night and the rain is upon me, — Nothing to cover my head but a beggar's garment. Take me again to the house of thy heart. Beloved! ^2V EPISTLE You, too near me for grievance or pardon. Nearer than pride, dearer than power. Oh! could you not, while I prayed in the garden. Watch with my soul one hour.f* Out where the blossom of life uncloses. You and I on the path of Love Walked in his wistful moon of roses. One with the bloom thereof. 63 You in your soul did the dream uncover, Reading the stars like a master of fate — You the indomitable lover Daring to call me mate! Never since Time for a bridal token Gave to the moon the reins of the sea, Man to woman such word has spoken. Love, as you spoke to me. How could I know that the book of sorrow. Blotted with tears by the ages shed. Charged to my score for a stern to-morrow Every word you said? I was a pilgrim, a lyric dreamer, Seeking the Grail round the sceptical earth; You were my fiery faith's redeemer, Lighting the cold grey dearth. Oh ! when the eyes of the stranger signed you. Though I had lingered so long away. Came no wraith of the past to remind you I should return some day ? Never since earth's remote beginning Two moons hung in a dual sky; Never two spinners were one thread spinning But one spun awry. 64 Though the desired sun knows all places. One line only his noon-rays mark; Only one hemisphere he faces. Leaving the other dark. Love, when the waxing moon is rounded I and my songs in your arms will sink. Even now is the draught compounded Our two mouths shall drink. What of the veil of alien kisses. Passionate hours and! dreams and sighs, — Veil of unendurable blisses Now drawn over your eyes.'* Once your eyes were wells untroubled. Calm as the infinite Question of space: Gazing deep, I beheld there doubled Only my own rapt face. Oh! shall I turn from the wells though clouded. Missing the verity hid in the wrong, — Turn with my pain and passion shrouded Under the sleeve of song? Nay, I will drink of the mingled waters, Bitter-sweet though the drinking be. Even as the pale wise merman's daughters Drink the salt sweet sea. 65 Then shall I know the power that humbles, Feel the compassionate touch that heals. See how the Self's thin mirror crumbles Under Life's vast wheels. Then shall I know the hidden places. Turn the great last leaves of the Book, Read the wonder in women's faces Where God dares not look. THE ANGEL God sent an angel down to me, A sweet and shining one, With deep eyes veiled in mystery And garments like the sun; And in its open hand the key No lone soul ever won. I heard it singing down the sky Before I saw its face; I listened, and I wondered why My life's familiar place Seemed new with wonder, like a high Mountain awash with space. It came and touched me with its hand. And kissed me on the brow, And told me of a fabled land Far off, and whispered now 66 Things that I feared to understand — A message and a vow. And I was frightened by its power. And anguished with its pain; And all its beauty seemed the dower Of my bewildered brain; And I was eager for the hour The angel should be slain. But they are strong, the shining ones Who house behind the stars. And run wild races round the suns. And bend the rainbow's bars. And bring to grieve the moon's white nuns Red messages from Mars. I, too, am strong, and in affright Because it seems so fair, I find its throbbing throat, dream-white. And clutch my fingers there. And through the long, warm, moon-mad night I slay it with despair. And though it struggles in my hold. And strives to kiss the hand That strangles it, and turns me cold With tender fire — the sand Of Time falls fast, and I am bold — But do not understand. 67 For I know not — Ah, woe is me! Whether I do right well. And save me from the agony No woman's lips may tell, Or if I stand a moment free — But doom my soul to hell. TO THE UNKNOWN LOVE Slowly the seasons come and go. And we are still apart! We know not each the other's face. Though deep in the lone heart Burns evermore the flame of hope — The fever and the smart. Sometimes within the nether mind Vague memories arise Of other times and other climes. Of lips and brow and eyes. Sometimes it seems the murmuring breeze Is heavy with your sighs. I hear your voice whenever a bird Pours out its wild love song. And in the moaning of the sea When nights are drear and long. My eyes look restlessly for yours Through every passing throng. 68 Somewhere you lie alone to-night. Calling me wistfully. Oh, that the earthly veil might fall And let the spirit see! It may be only yonder wall Separates you and me. THE LONELY QUEST LoxG did my soul interrogate the stars. For news of one remembered from a day When earth and I were younger. A great way We walked together, then the iron bars Of God divided us. I bear the scars Of lonely lives, of lonely loves; the spray Of doubt has drenched my faith, but could not stay My quest through all Time's changing calendars. And last night when I walked where angels call Softly to one another round the white Circle of heaven, I found him once again, — Found him a watcher on the Guardian Wall, A torch of sacrifice, a nameless light For the dark wilderness of mortal pain. 69 SALUTATION TO THE LORD OF LOVE Thou who art Master of Life and of Death and of Time, I salute thee! Thine are the unknown ways and the soul's hid pur- pose forever. Under thy feet is the orbit of earth, and thy rhyth- mical breathing Blows the worlds through the void and the stars on their weariless journey. Thee I salute! Thou art fairer than youth in the morn, my Beloved, — Source of the morn and youth; and the years are but motes in the sunbeam Thine eyes cast on the wind-swept ocean of Time. By thy footsteps Aeon on aeon is measured, and thine is the gauge of a moth's life. Thine is the gauge of the soul; and my song, and my love, and my love's pain Mingle as atoms of sand on the shores of the sea of thy being. Thee I salute ! I, less than obedient dust in thy service. Now am chosen, exalted high as the gods in thy favour. Why is the marvel. Beloved.'* How do I merit the jewel Hung by thy hand on my neck.^ In the night of my need I besought thee, 70 Praying the boon of the mere stones pressed by thy feet on the highway — Only the stones of the road. Thou hast flung me the stars for my wearing! Even in childhood's days I, singled out for thy blessing, Saw unveiled that Beauty which moves on the surface of all things. Saw revealed that quivering Wonder that hides in the shadow ; Aye, thou hast sounded the Word of original speech in my hearing. These were as nothing. Beloved! Only to-day have I taken Time by the hand, strong Love by the lips, great Life by his breathing; Now with Time I am one, and with Love, and with Life and the whole world. Thee I salute, O Beloved, here at the hem of thy gar- ment ! Lo, as a friend I behold thee, entering the door of my dwelling Robed in thy mantle of splendour — Thou the In- spirer, the Unknown ! — Reaching to touch my soul with the torch that enkindles the ages. Lighting the fire on my altar, the yearning that knows no abatement. 71 THE WAY It is no smooth and daisy-spangled way That my soul's feet have travelled. They that go Always upon the safe path never know The wider wisdom we who go astray Learn of the gods that guide us. We must slay Dragons at every turn; but they bestow Their powers upon their conquerors, and we grow Richer for every forfeit that we pay. I walked with Toil and Dream and Love and Hate, Who all their hidden lore to me confessed; No staff had 1, nor scrip to deal with Fate, Only the lamp of faith to light my quest; But when I stood before the goal's high gate, 'Twas opened wide, as for a royal guest. 72 Ill AZELON AZELON AzELON, I wonder why Your smile should make the planet shake! I wonder why your voice should make The stars so dizzy in the sky. 1 wonder why until the dawn I cannot find the gate of sleep, And dreams go by like frightened sheep, Seeking the fold of Azelon. I wonder how the thought of you. Once pale as the first green of spring, Has grown to cover everything. With hopes like Mayflowers shining through. When I confer with Destiny The Moon is my astrologer. Because I heard you speak to her One midnight when you walked with me. I question every daisy bed For omens — but they answer not. The very Spring is in a plot To snarl my heart's bewildered thread. The violet hints your eyes are blue. And laughs — my query to evade. *Tis strange, you make me so afraid, I never dare to look at you! 75 Azelon, my cheek is pale! The season's footsteps are so slow! A rose may half forget to blow In listening for the nightingale. Some day, when you are passing by, If I should dare to drop one sweet Shy pale pink rose-leaf at your feet 1 wonder would you question why! FAR AWAY If you should come and stand in yonder door And look at me, I would not feel surprise; For I have grown familiar with your eyes In dreaming of you. All day long I pore Over that volume of unwritten lore — The words you might have said, the smiles, the sighs That wild imagination prophesies When we come face to face, as heretofore. Yet if a letter came for me to-day In your strange writing, I should tremble so The very messenger, I think, would know Something my soul is yet afraid to say Even in the dark, when tossing to and fro I seek the path of sleep, and lose my way. 76 IN MAY Sometimes a fear blows cold upon my heart That we may come no nearer, after all; And then the grey November shadows fall Over the green May meadows. Many start Upon the way of Love, only to part At the first cross-roads; and the buds are small Upon Love's apple-trees — Oh, very small ! — And ripening days are distant as thou art. But when at night on each celestial bough I watch the sweet star-blossoms one by one Unfold their shining leaves, the morrow's sun Rising at dawn seems no more sure than thou; And my soul's timid, silent orison Is answered by thy soul's unworded vow. PERVASION You are all vague and haunting things to me. The shimmer of the moonlight on the mere Is your strange being, and the brooding fear Of the black midnight. Everywhere I see A symbol of you; in the cedar tree That dreams beside my window, in the clear Eyes of the lonely stars, in the austere And melancholy ocean's mystery. 77 Never the moon beholds my secret hours But you behold me, never the grey dawn Comes without word of you on its cool breath. And will I feel you in my coffin flowers, When over Time's cold borders I am drawn By the inexorable desires of Death? SHADOW-LOVE Dear, do you wonder when I turn away Sometimes without a word? 'Tis lest you know The frightened secret I have guarded so! When you are gentlest, then a wild dismay Blows round my soul's frail dwelling, and I stay Far from the windows. Only when you go And leave me alone with Love does the flame glow White on the midnight altar where I pray. How strange it is that I who fear your eyes Fear not your soul! for through the grove of dreams I walk with you unveiled and unafraid In spirit converse. But the dawn denies Faith to the man and woman, nor redeems One lovely pledge the daring shadows made. 78 OLD SONGS To-day I read some strange old songs of yours, Sung to another woman long ago. Love, I am glad! for now I know. ... I know That you can love, and the wild knowledge cures My deepest pain of all. Passion endures: A blade well tempered in the furnace glow Never grows brittle, but endures the snow, The ice, the night of boreal temperatures. I bless her, that veiled woman of the past, I pledge her beauty in my soul's red wine. She surely is less than I, for I am last. . . . Mine is the future. And her star shall shine High in my firmament, immortal, vast. . . . For I am Woman, and the songs are mine. LOVE-GLANCE Last night I saw a look in your strange eyes - A light — a something that half blinded me. So like it was to the sudden ecstasy Of waking love, which starts in sweet surprise That dawn is at the window. . . . But too wise. Too wise am I in secret tears to see The sun at midnight, or a prophecy Of joy in any star in your dark skies! 79 And yet . . . great Athon gazed at me just so. The night he made his holy vows a stair For me to climb by. . . . But my brain says no: The veriest pagan may recite a prayer To his own god before Christ's image. Go Thy lone strong way, my heart. Beware, beware ! THE SUBSTANCE AND THE SHADOW Why is your sadness sweeter than all song, And the cold clasp of your mysterious hands More warming than the fire? Ghosts of far lands And lives unnumbered at your coming throng The chambers of my house, and in the long Hours of your absence your still wraith demands More than your presence dares — and understands The weakness of my heart you deem so- strong. Until I fear some day I may mistake The substance for the shadow, and reveal All that I tremble now lest you surmise. Wary my heart must be, for pride's cold sake; And lest you be an infidel, conceal With painted screens the door of paradise. 80 THE BECKONER One day a vision came and beckoned me Out of the still grey halls where solitude Waits for the guest whose coming must elude The mocking eyes of Life and Destiny. I followed, and the vision bade me see The garden of dreams whose lilies never die. The rainbow of Love's promise in the sky. The arbour of faith whose walls are mystery. Breathless I cried, " Who art thou ? '* And he said, ** My name is Might Have Been, I am accurst By all men, but my boons shall make thee strong; Take on thy lids my chrism of tears unshed. My bitter wine of knowledge for thy thirst. And for thy breast the barren rose of song." THE GATE You are the gate of that walled paradise That I can never enter, and your word Is like the angel of the flaming sword That turns all ways. Beloved, I am wise — Not from the tree of knowledge, but your eyes; And sad with all the meanings underscored In God's great book of Passion. . . . Dream adored! adored ! I slay it daily, but it never dies. 81 You are the gate behind whose iron bars The rose of life is red, and in the dusk The angel walks among the waving grain. I walk outside, beneath the shivering stars; My only harvest is the empty husk, My only flower the lily of white pain. THE SECRET JEWELS Oh, little do you know how rich you are In priceless jewels! I have given you Thousands of pearls, my tears, all pure and new From the deep seas of sorrow; a great bar Of rubies for your sword — not mined afar. But my heart's blood drops ; opals of strange hue My moonlight dreams that never will come true; And crowning all, my faith — a diamond star. But these rich gifts I bring you secretly. Hiding them in the dark and silent ground Beside your door; for I could never bear That you should know how you impoverish me. Could not endure that when the gems are found You gaze at me in wonder — and not care ! 82 WHEN WE ARE OLD My friend, when you and I are very old, And meet each other after many years. And sit together by the fire, that cheers Those shivering ones whose love-fires have grown cold; Then maybe I will say to you : " Behold These sweet song-flowers I watered with my tears When I was fresh as they; my woman-fears Hid them till beckoning Death had made me bold." And lying all alone in the dark night, You will remember that my mouth was red. My hand was warm, my shoulder smooth and white; Remember and weep the love you never gave. And toss till daylight on your dreamless bed, And shudder — thinking of the lonely grave. SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI With you pass all the glories of the hills. Green with the dream and promise of the spring. The robin leaves on chill autumnal wing My budding Northland, and the hidden rills Shudder as in November. The wood stills Her breath to listen for you, who now sing No more about her chambers. Everything Beautiful passes with you, and vague ills Whisper together hoarsely just outside 83 The door of life. . . . O Love! the clouds can tell In sobbing rain their heaviness, the tide Rises with word of power; but I who dwell Between the granite walls of pain and pride. With never a tear endure the great farewell. PASSION SEEDS * 'Tis sweeter far to gaze in your soft eyes One little moment, without word or touch. Than any love-embrace I ever knew. Your breath the other night upon a book We read together, fluttered a loose page — And my soul shivered like a willow-leaf. What mystic counsel did your mother hold With God, ten moons ere ever you were born. That you should wear the rainbow round your head? Here is a riddle for the dual Sphinx: When you are far away — you seem so near; When you are near — you seem so far away. Until I loved you, Dear, I never knew How sad the eyes one passes in the street. How still the world an hour before the dawn. 84 If you should die and learn my guarded love. Then would I burn a lamp till the sun rose — Fearing to face your spirit in the dark! Your letters. Dear, are like the gentle winds That make the grey woods weep, on some soft day In winter when the boughs are bare of leaves. To-day I heard a wandering harp-player Under my window, and in every tone The words of love that you will never say. If I could dip my pen in your red blood. Then would I write such songs — such passion songs That even you would wonder whom I loved. The schools of all the world could not have taught So deep a knowledge as my soul has learned In the stern college of your calm regard. How strange that I, who have explored far seas, Charting new islands on the map of Love, Should steer my boat upon this jagged reef! Your lip is like a petal of that rose That blossomed in the shadow of the Cross — Red as the mystic flower of Golgotha. How many hopeless lovers must have died. Hiding in guarded shrines their sacred fire. Ere Sappho wept for Phaon in old days! 85 Maybe some lonely heart in unborn years Will bless your coldness: Had you given me love, I had made songs for you — but not these songs. Your shadow on the granite wall of pain Has shown me more of beauty than the full Sunlight in all the rose-bowers of the world. What matter though the iron doors of Fate Part us forever? Love is everywhere, And you are mine — though I am never yours. I never knew how chaste my spirit was Till I touched you: Love's scarlet flame is mild, But his crucible is whiter than blown snow. I saw a man and woman with a child, Happy together . . . and I stole away Among the shadows of the lonely woods. Your praises of my songs are like the dole Given a minstrel who in silence knows He is the secret first-born of the King. I dread to see the blossoms of the spring: The violet, the white lily and the rose, Will haunt me with your eyes, your brow, your mouth. Before I saw your face, I always wondered Why the blue moonlight, and the moaning sea. And the grey dawn, had filled my soul with tears. 86 ** I care no more/' I said, and lightly sang. And then I saw you passing in the street. . . . And I was very still, and sang no more. If you should ever understand and say, '* Take all I have, though less than your long love," Then would I smile — but go far off from you. Only from you to me the Love Supreme Or nothing — as that rebel archangel Chose hell to standing second before God. Your boon of thorns is my immortal wreath; And save for you I never could have known How One so loved the world — that loved him not ! THE STILLBORN The burden of my love for thee has grown Intolerable; 'tis heavy as a child Under my heart, and struggles to be born. Long have I borne it in my burning womb Hidden from all; have laughed and gone my way Among the virgins. . . . But my hour is come. My mantle of indifference grows too narrow Longer to screen my secret, and I creep Into the lonely garden of confession Under the stars; no lesser eyes should see The weakness of my tears. The stars are old, 87 And some bear women's names. Surely the stars Will understand; surely they will not chide, Nor shame me with cheap pity, who am strong And ask no pity of the stars or gods. How long ago it seems, that winter night When in a sudden rapture the small seed That now has grown so mighty, fixed itself Deep in the soil of my being! I have seen Since then the snow upon the rolling fields Make way for the daisy, I have seen the rose Blossom and fade, the busy harvesters Gathering the grain. Now in a little while Shall I behold something the dews of night Will warm their liquid hearts to lie upon. Let me not cry aloud, remembering All things are born in pain; remembering That every pain shall pass and be no more Even a memory. Had not yonder plain Pangs poignant as a woman's in giving birth To the blue mountain? Are not master-songs Born of the poet's travail and his tears.'' Let me not cry aloud! Had my own mother Never known pain, I never had known song. And the green world had never known of me. A little while and I shall understand More than Minerva, answer the great question That graved the wrinkles on the Sphinx's brow. Only a little while and I shall look m Love in the face — if it be not born dead. Having endured too deep prenatal grief. Shall I be frightened when I feel its breath. Knowing the woe that waits all breathing things? Much have I sung of Love in other days. When I have walked with Joy in the high hills. Careless and free. Having beheld its face. Shall I pass awed and silent down the years. Hushed with a knowledge beyond joy and song? THE INTERVENER I LEANED entranced upon a flowery gate. When a stern figure faced me in disguise. I thought it was the iron hand of Fate That turned me from that poppied paradise; But gazing up, with stifled word of hate, I saw instead — my Guardian Angel's eyes! 89 IV THE HUMAN MIRROR A Rhapsody THE HUMAN MIRROR A Rhapsody I Beloved, all the beauty and the dream That trembled into being from the dark. When God's original creative spark Went singing through the void of the Supreme, Thou dost reflect for me In the efl*ulgent mirror of thy form. Everywhere on thy warm And glimmering surface beckons visibly The wraith of that divine and mystic key That can unlock the double-doors of Being. Thy semblances are symbols in my sight Of that Reality beyond our seeing, Whose shadows are our glimpses of the Light. Oh, that thine eyes could see The epiphany thou art! Love's vision has unveiled the moving mirror. And in thy clear reflection shown to me Him, thy great archetypal counterpart — Creator and Preserver and Destroyer — Whose breath brings forth the whirling universe. And whose inbreathing draws it back again. In the dark Sea of Silence to immerse The links of Time's long chain. 93 All forms lie only half-concealed in thee: The curve that hints the circle hidden, the line Straight as an arrow from Creation's bow. The pentacle, the trine. The royal square, the demiurgic sign, — These are the symbols of thy sovereignty. Magi of Love, they will reveal to me The mysteries they know. Thy kisses are the very potency Of the immortal Breath, A whisper on the winds of ecstasy Blown from the green fields beyond life and death. My fluid soul that presses quivering The shores of Being at the touch of thee. Is one drop of that primal, spatial sea Thrilled by the vibrant touch of God to sing The passion-song whose notes are stars and prayers; And in the rush of joy my spirit dares The rhythm of that planetary music. O thou star-wanderer! Would that I knew the tenuous winding way Thou hast ascended through our terrene clay The seven stairs of Life — The toil, the unimaginable strife! Aye, or that other longer, stranger road. Whose deep declivities are gods and aeons. The road of thine original descent From Him, the Immanent, The One, the inconceivable Abode. 94 Thine every footstep seems To hint of ways whose chart He only hath; Infinite must have been thy days^ thy dreams, Thy converse on the path. Son of the Presence, The boundaries of thine inheritance Are one with thy great Sire's divine romance. Thine are the potencies of endless life. And on thy lips is that unchanging word Whose lingering cadence every age has heard. In thee are all the pictures of the past, The shadowed wraith of everything that is. The seeds of all realities to be. Unseen they lie, in silent companies. Waiting my touch that irresistibly Calls them to manifest their forms to me. Even reminders of ancestral wrong Survive in these fond arms wherein I rest — The powers at whose behest The ages made me weak, and made thee strong; But I forgive and love like all those women Whose lives are the background of my palimpsest. And over their dead story I grave my song. Revealed in thee, bards of the unborn days — Their foreheads honoured with prophetic bays The seeds of whose home trees have yet to climb Through the cold soil of time — Urge me to give my songs to pave the ways Their unshod feet must travel. 95 II Thy body, my Beloved, is to me The alphabet of Life's deep mystery; By it my soul can falteringly spell The hidden story of humanity. And all its perilous future paths foretell. O miracle of form! O ecstasy of spiritual line. Where human sight is lost in the divine! Dizzy with adoration I have lain In the rapt stillness of the summer night. Companioned by the intimate sweet moon. Gazing at thee — until the sheer delight Of vision grew bewildered, even to pain. Losing itself in swoon. The mould wherein thy wonder-breathing flesh — Young and so flower- fresh — Was wrought but yesterday of joyous clay. Is older than the memory of thy race. It has persisted with thee, birth by birth. Since that self-confident day In the triumphant springtime of the earth. When the strong groping spirit of Man first uttered That ritual of his immortality. Varied by destiny, desire and time. Experience and clime. The shadows thine enduring form has cast Upon the mirror of mortality — Their little, gesturing, vivid hour to last — 96 Have one by one passed irretrievably Into the dark enclosing frame of the grave. But still the Uncreated waits in thee. Urging — through mazes where no mind can trace The utter diffusion of Its unity — Eager reincarnations of thy race. Ill Oh, that my questing soul could understand This mystery of Life that hides in thee! I read no message of Infinity In the star-mirroring, stupendous sea. So potent to inspire Even as one small motion of Love's hand. O golden life of spirit, dream and fire. Compounded in the cabinet of birth! Art thou my Love's, prisoned by his desire Within his house of sublimated earth? Or, art thou in thyself that ambushed Thing, Whose intricacies of doom Astound the figures of man's reckoning? Maybe thou art the Master of the loom. Stronger than Time, inscrutable as Fate, — The Weaver who by devious delays Held the gold threads that are my Lover's days Suspended in the air. Until it served thy purposes to fill The tiny but inevitable square Sacred to him, his own predestined part 97 In the grand pattern of Kabalistic skill — The human fabric of thine awful art. What is that life. Beloved, that I feel Vibrant, self-conscious, in each atom of thee? By aid of Love's white magic I would steal The veil which hides that habitant from me. Baring the jealous beautiful strange face Science may not uncover — The face of Life itself, therein to trace The mystery of my Lover. — Could I unveil its wrappings, could I see That unit of untiring energy Which animates thy fervid, throbbing clay, I, though a time-bound mortal, might arouse Visions, long-slumbering, of Creation's Day; I might behold the eyes of Him whose spouse Was the great Paradigm — Mother of Form, of Motion, and of Time — Whose memory endows The forms of earth with their bewildering beauty IV The soft rose-lining of thy human veil Is the soul-essence of that crimson hue The gods know as desire; Chastened it was in that creative fire Which left thy gleaming surface ivory-pale, Unshaded by the dust whereof it grew. Thy devious veins whose deep blue courses seem 98 Mysterious hieroglyphs all over thee. Are secret rivers of Infinity, Rolling their pulsing ways through meadows of dream Down to the mystic sea. The restless sea whose tides are life and death. Oh, that the river's flood might cover me! That I might breathe no longer my own breath In this cold isolate austerity Of life outside of thee! Love, let me feel the divine ravishment Of thy deep veins* inviolate content. The beating of thy heart is to my ears The rhythm of the sacramental mass Sung by the vested years. As one by one with measured steps they pass In rapt procession round the reverent spheres. That superhuman music moves my soul Even as the wind's wild music moves the sea. While under and around and over me Thy heartbeats sound their mighty organ roll. Pulsing and luminous, the fringe of light Around thy form is visible to me In the dark night. In that ellipse I see The orbits of the world of pain and pleasure. That round thy heliocentric heart, my Love, Tread their melodious measure. Like to the ether-wandering worlds above. 99 What draws the glory of thine aureole I know not, save it be The fierce attraction of the cosmic Soul. Its oscillation blinds and dazes me: It rises from thee like the shimmering heat From metal in the sunlight, when the wheat Ripens, and meadow-lands exude Their second plenitude. Is this the fiery essence of thy being, That at the stations of its outward course Calls to its flaming source? These mysteries of light which beckoned so That I bound on my sandals for the quest, Challenge me now, and would my steps arrest, Raising a warning finger lest I go Even to the cave of the Unmanifest That brooks no mortal guest. Yet strange things do I see recorded here In this thy Soul's symbolic atmosphere: Outlines of lands, remembered mistily. Where I have walked with thee In lanes of love, or other paths austere. In thy far wanderings through realms unknown. When in the night alone With the wise ancient retrospective sea, Have not vague memories come and questioned thee Of bygone days with me? When thou hast heard the moon-mad nightingale's Lyrical wooing of his love, the rose, — Whose answering sweetness to his passion flows 100 In yearning fragrance through her filmy veils, — Hast thou not felt the haunting atmosphere Of something lost, yet memorably dear? Has not a deep, oppressive emptiness Cried in thy heartache for a happiness Whose lovely name even thou couldst not guess — Being the speech of some forgotten sphere? On Thought's horizon I have caught the gleam Of setting stars, through memory's twilight haze. And known them for the ghosts of other days. When thou and I together, my Beloved, Dreamed the sweet human dream: These phantoms walk with thee in all thy ways. The perfume of thy passion-shadowed hair Is heavy with the mystery and the prayer That brooded over Asia in old time. Thine eyes have the deep meditative calm Of India in her prime. Pure with the peace of the eternal Brahm. Thine eyebrow's dusky line Is hieroglyphic, an ideal sign Occult with ancient meanings, but half hid. Of Sphinx and pyramid. Every reflection on thy mirror cast Is teeming with the spectres of the past. In what dim dawn of elemental dream Did thy first vibrant image agitate The tenuous substance of the shadowland? The far events these glyphs commemorate. My dust-blind spirit may not understand. 101 VI Turn to me, Love, thy sweet, reflective eyes! What beauty-curtained thoughts convene behind Their windows in the chamber of thy mind ? — The secret chamber to which God denies That even I should any entrance find. Hurling the atoms of Himself apart. Did our primordial Projector fear That in our gravitation back again. Proclivity might carry us too near — One to another yearning passionately — Making his purpose plain Before the destined hour of Unity? And, fearing so, did He reserve the mind. That one inviolate and lonely centre Even Love may not enter? Yet often, my Beloved, I have caught Etheric intimations of thy thought. When hands and lipst and eyes were motionless. Guided by these, my hopes have dared to guess Some hidden entrance that would yield to me. Could I but find the key. It is a master-workshop, and a temple. That Nature-guarded chamber of thy thought. There in seclusion potent things are wrought. And potent worship offered to the Light By day and night. There as the solar periods go by. The resolute magician dares alone 102 The demon legions of the magic zone — Phantasmal forms that seek to terrify Even the valiant ones at whose behest The veil is raised that guards the great Unknown. Thy sovereign will is that arch alchemist Whose power no spirit can utterly resist. Held in its crucible^ Life's baser things Are melted into Beauty's virgin gold: 'Motives of men, their rhythms manifold, Their fierce desires, their dreams and falterings, All are transmuted by that master bold. Through Love — the universal alkahest Of the magician's quest. Lone, and besieged forever by the rout Of the unhallowed sons of Fear and Doubt, The patient worker that abides in thee — Shaping new beauties for eternity — Shall be the prophet of a purer art. Thou Poet of my heart! VII The reverent soul in me Would swing Love's sacred censer silently Before that altar where the soul in thee — Pure as a flower to heaven looking up — Burns in its golden cup. 103 Thy spirit is a lamp to light my way Through the bewildering mazes of the earth. Beyond this perilous dearth It beckons, and I go no more astray After the ignis fatuus of fame. Nor pleasure's wavering flame. That love-trimmed, faith-filled lamp burns steadily, Even in the winds of pain it flickers not. Signal divine of God, it marks for me The destined earthly spot Where for my wind-blown soul passage may be To the far calling ocean of unity. VIII These are the seven jewels the stars intrust To the rash keeping of the house of dust: Thy form, thy life, thy garment of desire. Thy veiled etheric record of the past, Thy dual mind — the dream that will not last And the immortal vision framed in fire. And IT, the golden microcosmic spark Of the one Flame whose word awoke the vast Of the original dark. This house of dust that shelters thee. Beloved, This body where thou tarriest a day. Is the hall of learning told of by the sages Of older, wiser ages. That every traveller dwells in on his way. Over the sombre walls are gaily spread 104 The fabrics of illusion, blue and red, Violet, gold, and every lovely hue The vreavers knew. The jewel of the Great Ensnarer glows Temptingly here wherever the light falls. And in the dark malevolently glows. Never while lingering within these walls Hope to enjoy repose. Yet in these chambers of illusive grace A little while I would abide with thee, Till Beauty — thy co-dweller — shows to me The wonder of his face. IX benedicite unutterable! 1 see thee in the glory of the sun — Blindingly beautiful. Even in mystic visions there is none Comparable with thee when that sovereign light Reveals thee so to my interior sight. The petals of the rose are not so fresh As the blossom of thy flesh. Nor is the marble of Pentelicus To be compared with thee for gleaming splendour, Thou culmination of the marvellous ! When first I saw thee in the light of the sun, A film undreamed of fell from off my eyes; Then I beheld what Beauty meant to Him Who made it, as His own primeval bride — 105 Made it and veiled it even from the wise-^ From all save those whom love had purified. But though I had the voice of the seraphim, I could not make the blind world realise The vision in my eyes. Beloved, where the lights and shadows meet Along thy sun-illumined form, I see Glory liquescent, quivering mystery. O wonder from thy forehead to thy feet — Wonder of Beauty, by whose ravishment Spirit and mind are blent! Dazed with infinitude, I lay my face In the warm intimate shelter of thy breast: But even here the vision finds no rest. Here the fond relic of a lost embrace — A union riven in some forgotten storm — Whispers imagination of a time When we were one, even in outer form; And this sweet useless remnant yet survives To explain the yearning of our separate lives. I hold thy lovely head between my hands. With fingers buried in thy clinging hair. — O maze, whose mystery is my despair! Symbol whose meaning no man understands! Art thou an emanation and a glory Of the indwelling spiritual fire, A million-threaded lyre 106 iMusical with the immemorial story Of bodiless desire ? — The whisper of thy locks across my face Is like the quick embrace Of a passing spirit in the startled air. Potent as faith and passionate as prayer. XI O benedictive hands, that hold for me Divine response to all my orisons! Ye are the same that down the past I see Wildly uplifted to the deity Of prehistoric suns. The lonely dream whose destiny was man. Yearning to reach and take The blessed something of his dumb desire. Performed the miracle — and so began Beautiful hands, like these of Love*s, that make Such complicated music on the lyre Of my imagination. Wonderful are these nails, the boundary Of thine extension in the outer vast: Curled rose leaves, that some danger of the past^ Some ancient cruelty. Petrified in their fragrant loveliness. But mindful of the garden of delight Where first they bloomed, they spring as readily To the clutch of Love's invincible caress. As to the sterner fierceness of the fight. ao7. XII I gaze into the dark dream of thine eyes. Deep and bewildering as etheric space — The night-veil of the skies Wherein God hides His unendurable beauty. Only revealing in the points of light Glimpses of His inviolable grace Subdued for human sight. O visual spheres, to whose formation went The very essence and the potency Shrined in each element! In you the dust of earth is most divine. And the uncertain substance of the sea Held for a vast design So marvellous that man might almost fear it: The revelation to the prisoned one — The lonely, earth-bound spirit — Of that material, cosmic tapestry Woven of stars and earth and air and sea. For this the patient watchman of the Sun, Sleepless through ages in Time's wilderness, Has burned his mighty lamp that men might guess. Seeing the web, the purpose of the Weaver. Through the occult dark centres of thine eyes God looks at me. O gaze that terrifies! O loving, brooding Dweller that is God! In those impenetrable deeps I see The clear, transcendent Question looking out 108 Into this world of Doubt; A separate Something, dwelling there alone, Guarding a hidden purpose of its own. Through what long changes in the forms of things Hast thou, indwelling Wonder, found thy way Triumphing through the ever-lightening rings. From thy first blind desire to the outer day? JEons have passed thee, stumbling in the dark! Thy passage left a mark In the soft substance of eternity That only God could see. How lonely and bewildered was thy going! The whole blind length of solitude thy way Led, and the width of pain. The height and depth of yearning and dismay. Then in a dream thy vision, lightning-taught. Leaped through unknown dimensions of the brain, And the miracle was wrought. All this I read. Beloved, in the wise Deep volume of thine eyes. XIII Last night I whispered in the noiseless dark A message from my spirit unto thine; Then in a rush of wonder did I hark Thine unseen spirit's answer. And the sign Of nearness made me dizzy, as with wine From the blue bowl of the great Mysteriarch. I touched thee not, beheld thee not; the world — 109 For all that I might see — Rounded her shoulder between thee and me. And then my whisper and thine answer, clear As Venus questions Mars across the still Blue solar chamber, with the same heart-thrill As mine, and makes him hear; And the two planets counsel in the night — Maybe about the birth Of a spirit on the intervening earth. Whose natal hour makes him their neophyte. O wonder-gift of speech! Ethereal medium on whose vibrant wings Thy brain's imaginings Cross the great circles of the Void, and reach My brain, that yearns to thine even as my mouth Yearns to thine eager mouth. Thy voice to me is that high Emanation Out of whose glories came The ordered hierarchies of creation — Spouse of the unimaginable Name! Between thy lips there comes to signal me The Word of the great deep. Wherein the twain — Memory and Prophecy — Their world-long council keep. Thy voice. Beloved, is the signature After the great clef of the planet Earth — The key wherein my being's overture Was written by the star that ruled my birtti. 110 XIV Yea, breathe upon me, Love, that I may live With an intenser life. I would that all my being's ways were rife With the sweet certitudes thy life can give. Thy breathing has that rhythm the ocean taught The artless children of the Lunar reign. Before primeval Feeling married Thought And brought forth all their progeny of pain. How beyond all earth's meaning is the sweet Low whisper of that breath which comes to me As from the very lips of Eternity — Thou visible paraclete Out of the timeless vast Invisible! Thy breath is a caress the bodiless Past Bestows upon me as a mystic charge. Through me to kiss the last Breath on the bodiless Future's yearning marge. So solemn the mere thought, I half forget thy wistful human sweetness. Without whose glamour all these things were naught But colourless abstractions, void of worth Here on the warm, emotion-throbbing earth. XV Sometimes the dual rhythm of thy breath. Love, and thy beating heart, 111 Bewilder me with their involved motion. In some uncomprehended way thou art One with the power of God that measureth The heart-throb of the ocean. And the wild wind's premeditated breath. XVI I feel the benediction of thy dear Soft hand upon my face. From thy caress long rays of ecstasy Stream far beyond my being's narrow sphere. Losing themselves in the blue deeps of space. How does thy lightest touch unseal in me Vials of yearning attar, that flow out — Pouring their passionate fragrance over thee! Beneath thy hand what strains Of ethereal music cry along my veins! XVII Yea, make me one with thee ! Clasp me and hold me in that unity Stronger than thought, keener than pain — The only thing intense enough to seem Real in this world of shadow and vague dream. Something we must attain Calls us, surrounds us, penetrates our lives With that unrest no mortal comprehends. The answering soul ascends Eagerly rung by rung the ladder of flame; 112 Heedless of earth, of heaven, it blindly strives Toward its supernal aim. The angels listen, poised on moveless wings. And all invisible things Rush through the void, attracted by the light That shines around us in the teeming night. The sounds of unknown seas are in our ears. Time is no more, but lost in one accord Are the moments and the years; And seraphs waft us with their orisons The fragrance of the roses of the Lord. Grasped tight in the great Hand that hurled the suns Clear to their goals in space, we two are hurled Out in the ether, out in the abyss, Till self is lost and whirled Round and around like spirits in a storm — Out where mad chaos blazes into form. And planets, lightning-shod. Rush past us with a cry as on they race , . . Blinded, we know how Moses hid his face Because he was afraid to look on God. 113 V THE SPIRIT AND THE BRIDE A SONNET SEQUENCE THE GUERDON OF DESIRE O THOU unknown companion of my soul! I reach my yearning empty arms to thee Across the baffling dark. Come thou to me Now when I call. Beloved, though the whole Wide universe of suns and seasons roll Between thy world and mine. What sign shall be Our spirit seal of ultimate unity. Is graven deep on Time's unending scroll. The days are heavy-footed; but I know Thou wilt not come to me till I can say — Though dizzy with pent passion's overflow: " O God of Love, if that should be the way Thy servant needs must travel, I will go Unloved and lonely even to my death day ! " THE MYSTIC HILL Nay, friend, I am not sad, but very still. Waiting the word of Life that shall unbind The fetters of my soul. For I shall find Some day a pathway up the mystic hill Where Beauty walks with Love, where dawns fulfil The dreams of midnight, and the half divined Wonder unveils its face, and every wind With perfume of pure faith is all athrill. 117 And one will dwell with me in that high place Who gazes toward it from the other side. Even as I to-day, guarding the vase For the immaculate rose, whose petals hide The golden heart of mystery and grace, The promise of the Spirit and the Bride. THE BRIDEGROOM I WAIT for you. Beloved, even as they. The virgins of the Gospel, through the night Waited with lamps all trimmed and burning bright The coming of the bridegroom. For the day And hour I know not, nor by what strange way Your feet may travel. Will you bear a light Shining far off, like fame.^ And at the sight Will my small lamp respond with lengthening ray? Or will you come in silence through the dark, Unknown to all but me? The loftiest soul Shuns glory sometimes as the heavenly lark Loves not the noise of trumpets. I console My waiting heart with song — but always mark The measure of oil in my lamp's golden bowl. 118 THE MYSTIC MESSENGER Why do you come to me by night, by day, O ether wandering wraith? I would forget The vision of your haunting eyes, and yet — I dare not bid you either go or stay, For fear of Love offending! In the grey Austerity of dawn my lids are wet With tears that are not grief's, then pale regret Murmurs one warning word, and fades away. What mystic message has your soul for mine. Beyond the reach of language or of thought? What jewel from the spirit's guarded mine To crown me has your brooding presence brought? Beware, fond wraith! The world is bold, malign. And joys to bring such lovely dreams to naught! OUT OF THE MAZE Out of the world's inextricable maze You came and stood beside me; and I knew — After our long first look — that it was you For whom the watch-fires of my soul did blaze Their beacon through the darkness. Many days And many tears our faith must battle through. Before the orb of peace will rise in view. Blessing the union of our separate ways. 119 But in the joy of knowing that you are. My soul is strong to dare the long ascent To the great light, serene and confident That we shall reach Love's temple, though afar; That we shall take Love's mystic sacrament. And shriven stand before Life's judgment bar. RECOGNITION When we came face to face that star-set night Of miracle, my wondering spirit knew The purpose of its unity with you. Sealed by some strange, vaguely remembered rite In unrecorded ages. A white light Hid in your shadow. The caressing dew That lies upon the rose the still night through. Is less refreshing than that first quick sight To my awakened vision. I could see God's beauty shining through you, as a veil. Your voice was fraught with messages for me From the vast virgin Silence; and the frail Glass of my life trembled with ecstasy. As though it touched the rim of the Holy Grail. 120 THE SPELL The spell that draws my startled soul to thine Seems to be sounded from a secret place A million leagues above the world in space. Seems to be answered with the countersign A million leagues below. What vast design. Beyond our need to understand or trace. Brought us from dual darkness face to face In the great Hght, fusing thy dreams with mine? And oh, what tragic purpose of the stars Denied to us the guerdon and the faith, Giving the yearning only and the prayer, — The word we whisper through the iron bars Of absence to Love's melancholy wraith. Kissing the avid mouth that is not there! ALTER EGO In some strange way I do not understand. You seem to be another self of mine Newly discovered. At the hidden shrine Where none save me has ever made demand I found you worshipping, and hand to hand You met my challenge with the countersign. What magic weaver did our ways entwine, Ini what long dead and unremembered land ? 121 And when I sang to you my secret song. The yearning heart-cry only known to me, At the first note you joined the melody, Bass to my treble, confident and strong, And firmly touched the one elusive key In that grand chord that I had sought so long. THE HOROSCOPE O RADIANT angel of my ruling star! Read me the story of the horoscope That sent this lover, for I darkly grope Before the secrets of thy calendar. Thou knowest all things: Tell me, is it far. The day that wears my diadem of hope. When I shall know Love's plenitude and scope, And all his hidden wonders as they are? How blinded are we mortals by our birth ! — How poor! — how powerless in our joy or sorrow The capital of Destiny to borrow, Whatever wealth our future may be worth! Though I should give the glory of the earth, I could not buy one whisper of to-morrow! 122 THE DREAM I DREAMED last night you were a little child, A man-child that I nourished at my breast; Dreamed that your mouth — which never yet pos- sessed Even my mouth — drank of me in that wild And intimate nature-need. Divinely mild, They say of motherhood? Ah, no; but blest Beyond all peace that exquisite unrest. Drawing my life to yours, dream-child, man-child! I have been still with wonder all day long. The nameless thrill that only women feel Yearns in my bosom yet, so passion-strong Were your dream-lips, so poignant the appeal. And all my world is signed with your sweet seal. And all my veins are tremulous with song. THE AVOWAL I THINK God, when the river of live stars Flowed glittering from His fingers, must have known A joy like mine when, in your deep man-tone, You breathed the words, ** I love you ! " Flaming Mars Watched in the West, and, Saturn's golden bars Guarded us from the world. We two alone In that full-peopled solitude, had flown Beyond the reckoning of man's calendars, 123 And stood at time's beginning. You and I! Why, there was nothing else between the sea And God's far footstool in the Pleiades! ** I love you ! " With that strong, ecstatic cry. You opened Faith's wide temple doors for me. And brought my startled spirit to its knees. CONSUMMATION Look in mine eyes. Beloved! Is it true That you and I have found each other now? And when I smooth the dear hair from your brow, Do I touch you, and not the shadow of you That I have known in dreams the slow years through? My soul made long ago its maiden vow Before no other than its mate to bow In spiritual submission; for it knew — Beloved brother of the Inner Shrine! — That in the long procession of the years. Slow, weighted down with destiny's arrears. One laurel-crowned would bring me what was mine. Now I will melt the pearl that was my tears, And pledge you in Love's sweet and bitter wine. 194 LOVE'S FEARLESSNESS Love comes to me with nothing in his hand. And in his eyes promise of many tears. Between our yearning lives the gulf of years Yawns emptily — and never to be spanned! Our feet are deep in the uncertain sand Of the world's ways, its noise is in our ears; The future, lying in wait, is big with fears And prophecies we cannot understand. Yet bravely have we pledged Love, eye to eye. Challenging Fate to do her worst with us. And though the murky clouds are ominous. Broad wing to wing, our spirits dare the sky. Seeking in faith to find that marvellous Ethereal temple where Love's jewels lie. THE WINDS OF FATE What mighty wind from Fate's unfathomed seas Has blown our flame-winged spirits to this height Outside of space and time? The blinding light Which dazzles us — whence comes it ? and this breeze Sweet with mysterious fragrance, that so frees Our souls from little rules of wrong and right, From what rose-bowers of interstellar night. Love, does it come so fraught with prophecies? 125 I guess God's purpose ; but I dare not pray. Lest He should change it, as my punishment For being over-bold. So let us wait Here between earth and sky, till He shall say Loud in our ears the wonder that He meant In leaving us alone with brooding Fate. THE MOON PATH Last night the moon made over the dark sea A path of gold so real, that had I laid My hand in thine, and had not been afraid. We might have walked together, firm and free. Out of this hollow world of phantasy. And crossed the threshold of God's house, and made Our home among the angels. . . . Now, dismayed. Love, I can only stand and gaze at thee. The path is gone, the moon is gone, and I — I too shall soon be with remembered things That tear the heart with yearning. When the moon Lays next that golden pathway to the sky, I shall have hidden my tears in God's wide wings, And thou wilt hear alone the sea's sad croon. 126 THE FOG Grey as the tangled locks of haggard Fate, And wet as the midnight pillow of a, nun. Whose chaste and pallid bridegroom with the sun Vanished at evening, the disconsolate, iMad fog envelops us. The sea's long hate Is in the siren's screech, and one by one The wan waves hiss behind us, and we run With blinded eyes toward an unseen gate. God answers man by symbols. When he laid This veil of mysteries in our ship's wide way. He meant that we should read and understand. Why, even God, with his great cavalcade Of keen, detective angels, cannot say Whether our goal be Love's unbounded land! THE GIFT OF PAIN I PITY happy lovers, who have found No rocks across their pathway. They will go Down to the dust like little flowers that blow In dull domestic gardens, and Life's ground Will be no richer for them. We, soul-bound By the world's rusty chains, hurled to and fro- The playthings of the elements, we know What beauty hides in pain's last dark profound. 127 And if to-morrow this vast pyramid Of grief should crumble, and joy's tender green Sprout in our desert, could our hearts unlearn Their turned-down page of sorrow? God forbid! Should we not oft, remembering, stand and lean Together toward these flames that sear and burn? THE THEFT Between your burning body and your soul, How quick the choice that I would leap to make. Were choice demanded of me! I would take One last look in your eyes, and seek the goal Where fleshless spectres gather round Life's bowl. Invisible, intangible; would slake My thirst of passion only with love's ache. Rather than yield your spirit. When Fate stole The gem from my" betrothal ring, she left Its pearly radiance with me, and I live Now only for the light that it can give — I who of all sad souls| am most bereft. Be sure God's justice, deep, compensative. Will pay our spirits for this body's theft. 128 THE QUESTIONER I QUESTION the cold stars that answer not; I ask of the deep sea that hugged so long Our secret to her bosom; even my song With queries have I challenged, for my thought Burns with the passion to unsnarl this knot Wherein our lives are tangled. Pallid wrong. And right, whose beauty lies in being strong, These, too, with riddles has my soul besought. And still the answer waits. Now will I call Loud to your soul. Beloved, with my soul Across the leagues of distance. Only you Are high enough to gaze above this wall. And learned enough to read this hidden scroll Whose symbols spell the true and the untrue. THE ANSWER You are God's answer to me in the dark. Blind in the human wilderness I sought The road of my redemption, and I wrought A chain of devious footsteps. But one spark Fell from my star's cold lantern for a mark Of divination, and I doubted not. And one spring day the desert river brought A boat, whose music lured me to embark. 129 Down from the prow you came and took my hand. Drawing aside the veil that blinded me — The veil of old illusions. Now I see Clearly the land I leave, and understand Even illusion's purpose. Fearlessly I sail with you to the undiscovered land. LOVE MADNESS If this be madness, God, I would not draw Ever the curtains of weak sanity Between me and Life's face. When I am free Under the aegis of Love's ancient law. Why should I choose the shackles and the straw Of common life, or bend the subject knee To dull, plebeian wisdom.^ Let me be Mad with the gods awhile, mad with the awe And wonder of this magic, which has made Of one man's word the measure of all truth. Of one man's eyes the vast starred firmament; And in the closure of his hand has laid The dew-wet roses of immortal youth. And the bread and wine of Love's great sacrament. 180 THE VOYAGE Fearless of life and challenging the Fates, With you I venture in this fragile bark To cross the waters of the perilous dark Beyond desire's attainment. What word waits For us in the great calm that separates The known from the unknown? What symbols mark The star-scroll of the great Mysteriarch As he our destined way premeditates? This voyage, Dear, eludes all prophecy. And we will whisper neither vow nor prayer As we embark. Love's promised land, maybe. Beyond the reach of pity or despair, Will be the harbour of our souls that dare The waves of this unfathomable sea. THE MOMENT Though to the gods our lives may be supreme When rounded unto death, and though some dear Remembered joy may jewel some lost year Until pure gold its very shadows seem; Yet this one moment when we grasp our dream — The spirit-fusing moment that is here. Is the reflecting surface of a sphere Complete and isolate in Time's full stream. 131 I need no future, Love, beyond this mark Upon the disc of ages, for I hold Eternity within my arms, and hark To hear Time's clock strike twelve. The word is told That I have listened for so long in the dark. And all Love's mystic parchment is unrolled. LOVE'S HOUR OF SILENCE In this the tenderest of all Love's hours. When soul to soul unquestioning we lie Against the silence, and Life's flood rolls by, Red with the petals of his ravished flowers. Stirring within my breast I feel strange powers Before unknown; and burning in thine eye I read new purposes, that amplify Into all time these little lives of ours. This is the test that lesser lovers fear — This unveiled hour when the free heart lies bare Before its brother. And our spirits dare To breathe together this high atmosphere! Give m